Against Alcibiades: For Deserting the Ranks

He was sent for by Alcibiades,[*](His father, then in exile in the Thracian Chersonese.) since his outrageous conduct was becoming notorious. And indeed, what ought you to think of the character of the man whose practices were such as to discredit him even in the eyes of the great ringleader in those ways? He conspired with Theotimus against his father, and betrayed Orni[*](One of the residences of Alcibades in the Chersonese.) to him: but he, when he had gained possession of the stronghold, after abusing him in the flower of youth, ended by imprisoning him and holding him to ransom. But his father felt so deep a hatred of him that he declared that even though he should die he would not recover his bones.

When his father was dead[*](404 B.C.) Archebiades, who had become his lover, obtained his release. Not long afterwards, having diced away his fortune, he took ship at White Cliff,[*](On the Propontis.) and attempted to drown his friends at sea.

Well, to relate all the offences that he has committed, gentlemen, either against the citizens, or against foreigners, or in his dealings with his own relations or with ordinary people, would be a lengthy affair; but Hipponicus assembled a number of witnesses[*](This was the only formality required for a divorce.) and put away his wife, stating that this man had been entering his house, not as her brother, but as her husband.

And after committing offences of this sort, and being guilty of such a number of monstrous and grievous crimes, he is heedless alike of the past and of the future; when he ought to have been the most orderly of citizens, so as to excuse by his own life the offences of his father, he attempts to outrage others, as though he might succeed in imparting to his neighbors some tiny share of his own store of infamies, —and that, too, when he is the son of Alcibiades,

who induced the Lacedaemoniains to fortify Decelea,[*](In Attica, 413 B.C.) who sailed to rouse the islands to revolt, who became a promoter of mischief to our city, and who marched more often in the ranks of the enemy against his native land than those of his fellow-citizens against them! For those actions it is your duty, as it is also of those who are to come after you, to take vengeance on anyone of this family who falls into your hands.